Poll

Columns

It’s every parent’s nightmare.
Your son is playing football, takes a thunderous hit to the head and goes face down on the turf. He doesn’t move.
Time stands still. Your vision swirls. You rush to the field. Your protective instincts are running full-throttle.

It has been 13 years now since I was told that I had breast cancer – a fast-growing type, they said. On a scale from two to nine, I was a seven. Not a good number to be.
Being the first in my immediate family to be diagnosed with cancer, I searched my ancestor charts for other kin who may have died as a result of this particular affliction. I came up blank. In fact, throughout the lives of my family members, the most common cause of death was old age.

1997 – It was the one-year anniversary of the work camp at Vandalia Correctional Center. Inmate hours at the work camp were totaling as many as 30,000 per month.
Brownstown officials were celebrating the startup of a sewer line replacement project. A $350,000 state grant was being used in conjunction with a $150,000 loan.
Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Hoffmire were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary.
Sophia Martin was celebrating her 100th birthday at Fayette County Hospital & Long Term Care.

1997 – The Vandalia City Council voted to make an offer on four tracts of land. The offer included three tracts at or near the former site of the Johnson, Stephens & Shinkle Shoe Factory and a vacant lot in the 300 block of West Gallatin Street.
Brownstown School District officials and district teachers were to meet with a mediator concerning a new contract for the teachers.

It was last fall when I received a telephone call from C.F. Marley of Nokomis with the news that he, along with his son, Bob, and Bob’s wife, Pat, had found a death certificate for William Wilson in the records of Fayette County.
This man was C.F.’s long-lost great uncle, for whom the Marleys had spent years searching. C.F.’s father, the late Bernard Marley, often spoke of two uncles who fought at Vicksburg, where "blood ran down the hill." These uncles were brothers to Bernard’s mother, Lydia Wilson Marley.

I like mysteries. One of the longest-running unanswered Vandalia mysteries for me has centered around the "Anthenaeum," a capitol-era theatre facing the public square from its location on Fourth Street.